covid-19

September 29, 2021 - Governors and legislatures across the South have banned public schools from requiring masks to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The bans have been successfully challenged in lower courts, but appellate courts overturned some of those rulings. Federal courts in several states are taking up the question of whether mask mandate bans violate the rights of students with disabilities.

August 20, 2021 - A professor confronts the deadly role misinformation has played in the white evangelical Christian church amid a COVID-19 resurgence in his home state of Arkansas, and he shares a still-unfinished poem written by his wife — an emergency physician — about her experience confronting the wages of bearing false witness.

July 16, 2021 - Drawing on federal COVID-19 relief money and other resources, historically Black colleges and universities are canceling debt for a student population that's disproportionately burdened by it.

July 13, 2021 - At a series of events hosted by the Marshallese Educational Initiative, Marshallese leaders in Arkansas discussed the public health inequities their community faces as a result of the U.S. nuclear legacy, climate change, and government policy.

July 1, 2021 - Over 2 million adults — including over half a million essential workers — fall into the Medicaid coverage gap in states that have refused to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act, and most are people of color living in the South. Congressional Democrats from Georgia and Texas recently unveiled plans to work around GOP-controlled legislatures' refusal to authorize broader Medicaid coverage even when facing a deadly pandemic.

June 3, 2021 - When workers at the progressive-themed, plant-based meat factory near Asheville, North Carolina, tried to organize a union last year, management turned to tried-and-true union busting strategies to defeat them. Workers were shocked by what ensued — but now one of them is sharing the story so others will be prepared.

May 20, 2021 - This Mental Health Awareness month, consider the psychological toll of the COVID-19 pandemic — particularly for those who were already facing racism and other extreme stressors. Most Southern states' refusal to expand Medicaid makes getting care more difficult for those who need it most.